


Under the Light of the Moon

by ThePunkRanger



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolves, F/M, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27549961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePunkRanger/pseuds/ThePunkRanger
Summary: Joan is a werewolf.  So is Sherlock.  Canine shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Joan Watson (Elementary)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	1. The First Change

**Author's Note:**

> Why not write another Elementary fic? It’s not like I have several unfinished ones hanging out on here already. (I am working on those though, no worries)
> 
> I’m a major werewolf nerd and couldn’t help the desire to werewolf-ify one of my favorite shows.
> 
> Joan’s wolf form is based roughly on a timber wolf.
> 
> I’m not totally sure where this is going, but I thought it was cool enough to share, so here we are.
> 
> Enjoy!

She’s twelve the first time it happens.

She’s in class, trying not to zone out completely while listening to her teacher drone on, and then suddenly her skin is itching.

It starts small.Little feather brushes and pinpricks along her arms and the back of her neck.She scratches absently before going back to doodling on her notes.

Then it’s at her legs, annoyingly hidden beneath her jeans where she can’t reach while in class.Not giving up, she rubs at the denim where it covers her knees and shins, then grinds her sneakers into the tile floor when her feet start up as well.

By the time class is over, she’s about go insane.She’s missed every word her teacher had said throughout the second half of the class, but that’s the least of her problems right now.

Waving off her friends, she makes a beeline for the nurse’s office.

Once there, she’s given a thorough once-over.Somehow, there’s nothing actually wrong with her skin.Even so, the nurse can see how miserable she is, and within the hour her mother is there to take her home early.

Joan hides in her bedroom for the rest of the day, trying to keep from ripping off her own skin.

As the afternoon light turns golden through her windows, her joints start to ache.Her hips and jaw are the worst of it, shocks of something akin to sciatic pain running from her spine down through her legs.

She’s in tears when her mother returns, distraught enough that she doesn’t think anything of it when she closes and locks the bedroom door behind her.

And that’s when she learns the truth.The whole truth, this time.How her birth father was afflicted by more than just a mental disorder.How he’d tried to hide himself away for three nights each month.How he’d been a monster.And now, so is she.

She’s alone again, bedroom door locked tight, when the moon finally rises.

The change hurts, but it hurts like righting a dislocated joint hurts.Her body seizes, then stretches, her bones pop and grow and reshape in the space of minutes, and then all of the pain and discomfort is gone.

She lies on her bedroom floor, shaking as she comes to terms with her new, temporary body.

She’s been small all her life, but she doesn’t feel so small now.Holding a hand out in front of her in the dark, she can see how it’s nearly doubled in size, mottled gray and brown fur covering her skin.There are long, thick black claws at the ends of her fingers, and when she turns her hand palm-up, there are black pads at the tips of each finger, mirroring the large one at the center of her palm.

She still has her opposable thumbs, which is a relief.When she climbs to her feet, she nearly falls right back down.Her center of gravity has changed, and she has a new limb to deal with as well.

Twisting, she eyes her tail warily.It’s long and fluffy, with a black tip and creamy fur along the underside.She tests it like an infant exploring its fingers, giving it a wag just to see what it feels like.It’s not entirely prehensile, but she has roughly the same amount of control over it as she does her legs, which is comforting.

Comfortably on her feet (or are they paws now?), she stumbles over to her bedroom mirror to see just what kind of monster she’s become.

Her head is almost entirely lupine.She has a muzzle, with a black nose and whiskers that quiver when she snuffles at her reflection.Drawing back her lips, she gets a full view of her new teeth.

Her incisors seem enormous, glistening like the fangs of a vampire, sprouting from both upper and lower jaws, though she can still cover them fully when she closes her mouth.Her front teeth are tiny in comparison, a pair of short rows between canines to grip while the larger teeth tear.Even her molars have become sharper, uneven and nearly jagged, like a toddler has drawn them in.

Closing her maw, she looks into her own eyes.They’ve become golden, reflecting back the glow of her bedside lamp.

She certainly looks like a monster, but to her surprise, she doesn’t feel like one.

She doesn’t feel angry, or gruff, or mean, like a monster is supposed to.She just feels... like herself.Her mind is still mostly clear, and she definitely doesn’t want to break down her bedroom door and go eat her family.

She is hungry though.Her stomach has the same hollow feeling that she’s used to getting after a day spent swimming in the pool, and the thought of a ham and cheese sandwich makes her stomach growl.

When she hears footsteps outside her bedroom door, she sees her ears perk up and twist in the direction of the sound.A paper bag crunches down near the floor, and she can suddenly smell grease and red meat, and to her disgust drool drips down her chin.

After the footsteps have retreated fully, she scrambles over to her door and cracks it open just wide enough to reach a furry arm out and drag the bag inside of her room.

It’s from a fast food restaurant, the bag much larger than what she’s used to receiving on the rare occasions she and Oren are granted to indulgence, and she lets go of any human pretenses like manners, instead burying her snout inside and snuffling around until she manages to clasp a hamburger between her teeth.

She rips into it with the paper wrapper still on, scarfing the entire thing down in a mere three bites.

Sticking her head back inside the bag, she finds more burgers, along with two boxes of chicken strips, and she crunches into them gratefully.

It’s more food than she would ever have been able to eat as a human, but her wolf stomach takes it all with ease, and by the time she’s finished the last of it, she’s finally starting to feel sated.

Her belly fully, she runs an obnoxiously long tongue over her jaws, then curls up on her rug, tail wrapped over her hips, and goes to sleep, utterly exhausted from the day.

—

When she wakes up the next morning, she’s naked on her bedroom floor, and there’s a note that’s been slid under her door saying that she’s been excused from school for the next two days.


	2. The Years Between

Her life doesn’t change much, after her first transformation.

She gets better at it, not fearing the change when it comes, instead enjoying the break it provides from the mundanity of school work and preteen politics, holing up in her room three nights in a row to eat copious amounts of junk food and chase around the contents of a pack of tennis balls she had bought during one of the rare times she had been allowed to go shopping on her own.

It’s all fine, and to her surprise, it gets even better when Oren finally transforms.

With her brother along, she has a packmate, someone to play with during the long nights.It’s  fun having him around, even if they are still relegated to the confines of her bedroom, and she finds herself laughing when their mother complains that they’re going to eat her out of house and home before Oren has even hit his teens.

Life is good, and, she supposes, as normal as it can be when you’re a monster, even if she does have to back out of more sleepovers than she’d really like to.

Her teens go by in a blur of hormones and learning experiences that she’d just as soon forget, and before she knows it she’s out on her own, living in a dorm with four other girls and paying the extra rent to be able to have a bedroom to herself.

It’s a literal small price to pay for the ability to keep her secret, even if she does miss having Oren around, and the hideous diet associated with college students allows her leeway when it comes to the ravenous eating habits she exhibits as a wolf.

Even still, locked safely behind her bedroom door, she can hear her roommates discussing in hushed tones how selfish she is for locking herself away at night with a whole room to herself.

Entering medical school is another thing entirely.She can smell  _ everything _ when she’s inside hospitals, from disinfectant to bodily fluids to humans open on operating tables, and it takes effort to make it a strength instead of a weakness.Because even with the onslaught of smells, she can still sniff out changes in body chemistry with incredible accuracy.

No one understands how it is that she can so often pinpoint the exact disease a patient is suffering from even before seeing their chart, but most seem happy enough to call it luck, or a sixth sense, and leave it at that.

She’s able to study even when in wolf form, and she takes advantage of the long nights spent in fur to get a leg up on her schoolwork.It works fine for her.At least, it does until she starts having to do overnight work.

She does the work throughout the majority of the month without complaint, even going so far as to take extra overnight shifts whenever she can, all in an effort to make it seem better when she has to stay home three nights in a row each month.

Even so, she knows it doesn’t go over well with most.She catches the glares that burn against her back and the whispered jibes that make the short hairs at the back of her neck stand on end in place of her hackles.

Her saving grace is that she’s  _ good_.She graduates with full honors, and even a couple of friends.Officially being a surgeon gives her a level of authority she’s never had before, and she finds that she’s never felt better than she does now, all four paws underneath her and a team at her side.

The full moons come and go with ease, once she gets her own apartment.She has the entire place to herself, no hiding away in a bedroom anymore.She rarely has the energy to play on the first night of the full moon, instead curling up as soon as her belly is full and sleeping off a month’s worth of stolen naps.The other nights she chews on tire toys and tussles with boat rope until she’s panting on the hardwood floor, tail flopping behind her.

It’s all great.

Until it isn’t.

It happens during the day on the second night of the full moon, when she’s usually at her most precise, her most intuitive.

The scent of blood seems to cling to her for days, and she spends the next two nights curled up in a ball of fur under her bed, ears against her skull and tail tucked between her legs.

Suddenly she can’t handle the smells of the hospital anymore.It’s too antiseptic, yet somehow too visceral at the same time.She knows that logically it’s not the same, but even so, every time the cold metal of a scalpel touches her fingers, it makes her think of rending claws, and she can’t seem to get the images of the bloodthirsty werewolves from the movies out of her head.

She feels like a monster, more so than she has in years, to the point where she gives in to the gnawing guilt in her belly and gives it all up.The years of medical school, the authority, the  _ helping people_.She lets it all go.

But not doing anything is worse, and so she goes looking for another way to help.After Liam, it’s easy to take on the role of sober companion.She’s learned the majority of the job through her own personal trial and error, and now she can use it to her advantage.The heightened senses of her kind come in handy as well, letting her sniff out the changes in a client’s scent depending on what drugs may or may not be in their system.Some say that she has a hawk’s eyes, but her wolf’s eyes are just as good, if not better, at letting her spot changes in pupil dilation and read body language.

Werewolves, just like their animal cousins, are pack animals, and she’s able to use her instincts to her advantage where true companionship is involved.She may not have had any real sense of a pack since Oren, but at least here, by caring for others, she can almost feel like she has one.Can almost feel like she isn’t alone when she locks herself away again, wolf ears straining to keep an eye on her clients even when she can’t do so in person.

It doesn’t work very well, but for now, it’s enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week and a half into working with her newest client, a full moon is on the rise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor content warning for carnivores being carnivores

She’s never met another werewolf “in the wild” before, which, she tells herself, is why she doesn’t immediately realize what Sherlock is.

In hindsight, it’s glaringly obvious from the moment they meet.

The second she steps inside the room, he’s in her space, bare-chested and eyes locked unblinkingly on her own.Even as he talks about love, she can feel the underlying message in his body language.

_ My house.My den.Not yours.Get out before I make you. _

Unfortunately for Sherlock Holmes, her job doesn’t permit her to do that.Later on she finds herself remiss to think of how he gets her to break eye contact first, conceding to his authority without even realizing it.

It’s especially mind-boggling that she doesn’t realize what he is when they get to their first crime scene and he literally goes sniffing around the place.Sherlock investigates crimes like a wolf on the hunt, even occasionally dropping to all-fours as he follows the scent.Still, she passes his behavior off as “unconventional” and leaves it at that.

Somehow, they make it to their first full moon without him tipping her off.

“I’m going to bed.”

Sherlock looks up from his case files in surprise, something that might actually be concern coloring his expression as he looks her over.“It’s not even six-thirty yet.”

Joan shrugs, arms folded across her chest in discomfort.She can’t tell him the truth, so she chooses to say as little as possible and hope that his general apathy towards her personal life will carry over to this as well.“I have some paperwork to take care of, and it seems like you’re all set down here.”There is no paperwork, but he doesn’t have to know that.

“Not worried I’ll try and sneak out the window?”He asks.

Joan rolls her eyes, feeling uncomfortably aware of how low the sun is getting.“Believe me, I’ll know if you do.”

“Ah yes, your companion’s ‘sixth sense,’ right?”Sherlock says it as both a statement and as a jibe, but she’s too anxious to rise to the bait, instead leveling him with a glare that she hopes will be enough to stop his questions.“Very well.I personally have no intention of locking myself away tonight.”His comment seems loaded, but without him knowing what she is, she can’t imagine what he means by it.“Should you change your mind, there’s plenty of room for the both of us.In the meantime, goodnight, Watson.”

“...Goodnight.”

In her room, she locks the door and strips out of her day clothes, having no intention of losing her outfit just because it’s her first full moon in a new place.The curtains are drawn, and now all she has to do is wait.

The problem with being a companion is that she has to be as covert as possible about her transformations while she’s with her clients, left to wait out the full moon in silence while trying not to think about the hunger gnawing at her stomach.

The change comes quick and nearly painless once the moon crests the horizon, her body settling into its lycanthropic form with only a few pops of joints and a rush of tingling warmth over her skin as her fur grows in.

Fully transformed, she climbs onto her bed and uses her heightened senses to explore Sherlock’s home.

There’s a bite of mildew to the scent of the old brownstone, under the more prominent ones of stained wood and old books.She can also smell the odd cacophony of Sherlock’s various experiments and, from above her, the cloying sweetness of honey where it’s sunk down into the house from the hives on the roof.

Flicking her ears to and fro, she picks up the muffled sounds of New York in the evening.Cars pass down on the street in brief rushes of sound, and she hears snatches of conversation from the people on foot.Somewhere nearby a neighbor has their radio tuned to a classic rock station, and still another is watching a football game.She hears a low roar of groans as the favored team fumbles a pass and moves her attention elsewhere.

Closer to home, she hears the low hum of the bees, their day’s work nearly done.Downstairs is mostly quiet, though she’s concerned to not hear the general rustling and thumping that she’s used to Sherlock producing as he works.Instead she hears...

Claws.

Claws scrabble against the wooden staircase, the sound of heavy paws joining them as they make their way up to the second floor.

Every muscle in her body tenses.Claws mean an animal, but there aren’t any that live here in the Brownstone, and she knows that Sherlock keeps the doors and windows under tight lock and key at all hours, which makes it nearly impossible for anything to have snuck in.

Raising her muzzle, she scents the air.What she finds is woodsy, pine and earth and musk, all wrapped into a far too recognizable scent.

Werewolf.

There’s a werewolf in the house.One who isn’t her, and now they’re stopping outside her bedroom door.

Her hackles are up, her tail erect and slightly curled as she slinks towards the door.She’s never met a werewolf who wasn’t her brother, and she can feel her heart thundering against her ribcage at the thought of what could be waiting for her on the other side.

She tests the air again, searching out anything that could tell her more about the intruder.

Coffee is the first thing her nose picks up, under the thick scent of wolf.It’s joined by the masculine bite of the particular brand of bar soap that Sherlock uses, the thick musk of unwashed clothes, and the same sweet honey scent that wraps around the Brownstone.

Her hackles fall back into place along her spine, and her ears twist back slightly, embarrassed that it took until this moment for her to realize something so obvious.Sherlock Holmes is a werewolf.Just like she is.

A bark breaks the silence, and she nearly jumps out of her pelt at the sound.Sherlock barks again, his tone high and perky in greeting.When she doesn’t respond, he starts snuffling at the bottom of her door, a whimper in his throat, and to her surprise she can understand his meaning perfectly.

_ Don’t ignore me.Come play! _

Uncertain, she glances up at her doorknob.The small twist knob lock on the inside is easy enough for her human fingers to work, but her long claws and far less dexterous paw pads provide a challenge now that she’s furred.

Raising onto her knees, she reaches out and places the pad of a single finger against the groove of the lock.Logically, she knows that if she can just get the angle right, she should be able to unlock it, but when she pushes down the only thing that happens is that her finger slips off and her claw scrapes the metal of the doorknob, leaving a thin scratch mark in its wake.

She growl-whines to Sherlock on the other side.

_ I can’t. _

She hears Sherlock snort in annoyance, and the tap of claws as he backs up from the door.He barks, and her ears perk to attention.

_ Back up. _

He doesn’t have to tell her twice.She dashes several feet back, crouched at the base of her bed as she watches the door.

It slams open with a bang, the lock ripped from the frame with the force of a huge, furry body. 

And then, there’s Sherlock.

He’s on all-fours in her doorway, head lowered and sides heaving.There’s a second of uncertain silence that hangs in the room, Joan’s stomach wrapping itself in knots as she watches Sherlock breathe.

He shakes himself out, brown fur twisting in a cyclone, and then rises to his hind paws.

He’s huge.Joan is used to feeling tall in her werewolf form, but her size is nothing in comparison to Sherlock’s.He’s taller than the doorway by a full head, with a thick skull and shoulders to match, his fur mostly a solid brown, though she can see markings on his arms and torso.Surprised, she realizes that the markings are his tattoos, the ink giving pigment to his fur where it’s grown in over it.Mostly, though, his tail is wagging.

She rises to her hind paws slowly, ears twitching with uncertainty. 

Impatient, Sherlock whuffs at her, then moves in closer, neck extended and nose snuffling.

She jerks away, ears folded back in discomfort.Was this how werewolves normally said hello?She supposes that she doesn’t actually have any way of knowing, and she suddenly realizes just how sheltered her life has been.For all she knows, there are whole packs of werewolves who meet up and run amok at Central Park every full moon, chasing squirrels and playing pranks on drug dealers.

Sherlock looks hurt by her lukewarm reception, his now-golden eyes wide and his tail drooping.

The change in his body language makes her own tail fall.As a human, Sherlock is brisk and bristly, but in his fur, he’s come to say hello and invite her to play.

Plucking up her courage, Joan leans in and nudges his muzzle with her nose.Sherlock’s tail tip flips halfheartedly, and she whines deep in her throat.

_ Come on, don’t be sad. _

Sherlock’s ears prick, and before she knows what’s happening, he’s flicked his tongue out to lick her muzzle, the play back in his eyes.

Shocked, Joan just stands there, whiskers twitching as Sherlock jumps away, dashing back to her bedroom door on all-fours, entire body wriggling.

She might not know much about how werewolves interact, but that almost seemed like... no, she’s thinking too hard about this.If Sherlock has spent time around other werewolves, then he certainly knows more about how to behave socially than she does, for once in his life, so she can’t get too caught up in things like muzzle licks.

_Come!_ Sherlock barks, front paws tapping excitedly against the hardwood floor,  _ Food! _

Her stomach growls at the offer, and she’s more than happy to follow him, racing down to the first floor, then the kitchen, claws skittering across the stairs as the smell of meat grows stronger.

Sherlock leaves her there next to the dining table, her senses swimming with the fact that he  _ still _ hasn’t done the dishes, and disappears down into the basement.

A moment later she hears the creak of the stairs, and the growl of Sherlock dragging something heavy.

When he reappears, he’s joined by the biggest slab of raw meat she’s ever seen, a thick bone clamped between his jaws, and when he stops in front of her she can see that it’s an entire cross-section of a cow.

Joan’s stomach drops.She’s never actually eaten raw meat before, not outside of a nice restaurant, and she isn’t sure what to make of the idea.Her human side is balking at the idea of ripping into the uncooked flesh of a carcass, but her wolf side is already salivating, and Sherlock nudges his prize towards her, his gaze hopeful.

_ Where... did you get that? _ Her question comes out as a growl-whine, her brows furrowed.

 _Butcher!_ His responding yip is perky, and she wonders if it’s the same person who keeps him in supply of pig carcasses for his experiments. _ Come.Eat. _

There’s something odd about Sherlock’s barks, and she realizes with a jolt that there’s a slight shift to his dialect.He has an accent as a werewolf.The thought is absolutely delightful, and she finds her tail wagging despite herself.

Sherlock has an eyebrow quirked questioningly at her, one ear flicked to the side, but all she can do is shake her head good-naturedly before approaching the dead animal on the floor.

It certainly looks like a meal fit for a couple of werewolves, but even still, she isn’t sure she’s ready to let herself eat like this.It’s too close to giving in completely to the fact that she’s some sort of monster, and suddenly her stomach doesn’t feel so hungry.

There’s a sense of guilt gnawing at her when she turns her eyes back up to Sherlock, unsure of how to convey her inner turmoil.

He’s watching her intently, his tail ticking from side to side like the metronome of an old clock, excited and uncertain all at once.

She shakes her head, easing away from the half a cow on their kitchen floor.

Sherlock whines, then pushes it again so that it remains within biting distance of her.

_ Try. _

The word is less of a bark and more of an exhale, and she sighs before leaning in to study the food.

The shoulder isn’t too intimidating, she decides, and so places a hand-paw on what remains of the front leg, taking the meat between her jaws.

It’s tougher than cooked beef, and she has to pull roughly to tear off the chunk she’s chosen, the meat ripping away with a squelch that makes her insides churn.Luckily, her wolf’s teeth make quick work of it once it’s in her mouth, and she swallows it down without too much trouble.

She runs a long tongue over her muzzle, considering the flavor.It’s beef in its purest form, and while she personally would prefer something seared and marinated, there’s no denying the fact that it tasted  _ good. _

Sherlock is still watching her quietly, concern written all over his canine features, and when she swishes her tail in the positive, his ears prick happily, and before she knows it, they’re digging into their meal.

It’s amazing how fast the meat disappears, scarfed down by a pair of hungry werewolves, to the point where, by the time she’s slowing down, they’re mostly cracking into bones, long tongues and sharp canines making quick work of the marrow inside.

Her stomach is satisfied, but not entirely full, when she sits back, licking her claws clean.

Sherlock shakes himself out, then stretches luxuriously, front claws digging into the floorboards as his tail curls up over his back.Climbing to his back paws, he catches her eye and jerks his broad head toward the stairs.

_ Come.Follow. _

After their feast, she has no idea what to expect, but gets up anyway.They’re more subdued now, claws tapping steadily as Sherlock leads her up the four floors of the Brownstone and out onto the roof.

The cool evening air rushes to greet them, and Joan’s heart soars at the sudden feeling of freedom being outside brings.

Her full moons have been spent cooped up in bedrooms and apartments all her life, but the roof of the Brownstone is just high enough to keep them away from prying eyes, the nearby buildings all equally sized if not shorter, leaving them with a flat, wide plain to play in under the moonlight.

Sherlock trots over to his bees, leaving Joan to wander the silvery rooftop at her own pace.

Sherlock’s bee watching chair is still set up in front of the hives, but to her surprise there’s a scattered selection of toys that have been tossed around on the roof.She stops to sniff at a thick chunk of an old truck tire, it’s edges rough where the inner threading is showing through.

It’s an admittedly exciting prospect, the sight of so many playthings on a moonlit night, but there’s still the sense of being in someone else’s space.Of being in another wolf’s den.

Stepping away from the tire, she goes to peer out over the edge of the roof, taking in the sight of New York on a cloudless night.

The whole of it is glowing with human activity, the sky nearly magenta with so many lights down below.There’s traffic on the main road a few streets over, car horns blaring from impatient drivers.She’s certain many wolves would find the smells and sounds of the city off-putting, but to her they mean home, settling all of the jumbled, tense parts of her into the odd sense of calm that only comes from growing up surrounded by them.

Behind her, Sherlock barks for her attention, and she turns just in time to avoid getting hit in the back with a softball.Instead, it bounces off the raised wall of the roof behind her, rolling to a stop between them.

There’s a second of stillness, both of them watching the ball with rapt attention, before the unthinkable happens.

They pounce at the same moment, barely avoiding a collision as Sherlock snatches the ball out from under her snout and dashes away with it.

Joan gives chase, racing after him across the flat expanse of the roof.

She hasn’t allowed herself to play like this in ages, too afraid of being found out, but here she can already feel her human side slipping away, her mind running on wolf instincts and the simple joy of the chase.

She snags his leg with an outstretched hand-paw, and they fall into a tussle, limbs tangling and fur snagging before she gets a grip on the ball, her jaws fitting in the open spaces of Sherlock’s own.They’re growling, but it’s good-natured, tails wagging as they struggle for the toy.

Sherlock’s teeth slip, and she yanks the ball from his mouth, dashing away before he can find his footing again.

She’s never run before in her werewolf form, and it feels good.It feels like she could run for miles, muscles already honed by years of early morning jogs stretching and flexing as she weaves between the beehives, just barely avoiding the snap of Sherlock’s jaws as he tries to grab her tail.

Unfortunately, she only makes it another foot before he springs and tackles her, sending them back to the floor of the roof.

The ball rolls away, forgotten in favor of a wrestling match that she can’t even pretend to have a chance at winning.Sherlock has mentioned a previous habit of boxing recreationally, and she can see evidence of it in the way he tumbles with her, deftly dodging her untrained swipes before striking with paws and muzzle, taking care not to catch her with teeth or claws.

He pins her with a heavy paw on her shoulder, wet noses inches apart as their tongues loll, panting heavily.

Remembering his actions earlier, Joan darts upward and licks over Sherlock’s whiskers, tail thumping loudly against the floor.

Sherlock’s eyes are wide in surprise, and she catches the way his tail stills mid-wag.

Her fur feels hot all of a sudden, her ears flicking back against her skull with the sudden realization that maybe she’d misread the meaning of his earlier muzzle lick.

Sherlock whuffs, breaking the awkward moment, and knocks her snout with his own before bouncing away, trotting back over to his hives.

Joan sits up slowly, watching with curiosity as Sherlock stands upright, concentrating on the side of one of the hives.

He ducks down, and when he comes back into view he has one of the inner frames held in his teeth, head held high with his prize as he makes his way back to her.

There’s honey dripping down his muzzle by the time he places the tray at her paws, tail wagging proudly.

She leans in slowly, nose quivering as she takes in his offering.

The tray is almost entirely covered in honeycomb, the thick, golden liquid oozing sluggishly from between the small hexagons.When she licks over it’s surface, the texture leaves a funny a feeling on her tongue, but the taste is phenomenal, and she yips appreciatively to Sherlock before going back in for more.

Apparently satisfied with her reaction, Sherlock dives in next to her, and she watches with fascination as he deftly uses his teeth to scrape off a section of the comb, biting more than chewing as he downs the sticky nectar and its waxy home all in one.

They devour the contents of the tray with more care than the cow, Sherlock breaking off chunks of honeycomb for her each time before getting his own, sticky gold dripping from his short whiskers.

He’s being incredibly considerate, she thinks as she makes a vain attempt to clean the honey from her fur, nothing like the human man she’s come to know in the last week and a half.She’s come to understand the ways the full moon changes the ways she thinks, lowering her defenses and upping her animal instincts, but she can’t remember it ever seeming to make her or her brother nicer than usual.

The thought is worth coming back to, but for now her wolf brain is more concerned with food. 

The honeycomb tops off her hunger, and once the tray has been scraped clean she can feel exhaustion beginning to drag at her fur.

Yawning wide enough that her tongue curls out, she lays down on the roof, rolling over to let the soft night breeze ruffle the creamy fur of her full belly.

Sherlock flops beside her, laying on his front so that she can see the tattooed markings in his fur.His tail thumps softly in contentment, and she can’t help but mirror the action.

It’s been a long time since she was this happy on a full moon, she thinks, turning her head to lean in against her companion’s soft fur.

The city continues its nightly routine below them, the sounds of traffic lulling the two werewolves to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock’s wolf form is a Eurasian wolf, which are known to be significantly larger than their timber wolf cousins


End file.
